Capitals fall short to Hurricanes

The Washington Capitals fell to the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 on Valentines Day at Capital One Arena. At least that fan designed rally towel was sick. The Caps would go down, fight back but couldn’t get the late equalizer in their first game without Alex Ovechkin who went to Russia to be with his family after his father passed away. We’ll have more on that in a bit.

Brent Burns gave the Canes the lead at the 15 minute mark of the first period. T.J. Oshie tied it at 19:02 with a rebound goal for his 11th of the season. The goal was assisted by Joe Snively and Dmitry Orlov. Snively drew into the lineup after Aliaksei Protas was absent to be with his wife for the birth of their first child. Congrats to them.

1-1 was the score as the Caps outshot the Canes 10-5.

In the second period Paul Statsny gave the Hurricanes the lead at 2:33. Snively tied it back up for his first goal of the season which was assisted by Trevor van Riemsdyk at 6:23. Stefan Noesen gave the Hurricanes the lead right back for good on the power play at 11:38.

The Canes outshot the Caps 16-13 in the second period while the Caps outshot them 13-9 in the third period and overall 36-30. The Caps actually thought they tied the game with a goal from van Riemsdyk but the Hurricanes challenged for goaltender interference and won taking the goal off the board to preserve the score and the win for them.

The Caps are 0-2-0 this season without their captain. Oshie spoke to the media about the goalie interference call:

"“Their call so. It’s unfortunate, but we had other chances… Wish I would’ve been able to get off him a little bit, I felt like there was no room behind me to really move once I got down there. So it was just kind of unfortunate.”"

The Caps take on the Florida Panthers on Thursday before they meet the Hurricanes again this Saturday at the Stadium Series.